


Hell of a Woman

by bactaqueen



Category: Captain America (Comics), Marvel Ultimates
Genre: F/M, Memories, Regrets, Ults Cap wishes he weren't alive, uniform sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-13
Updated: 2014-09-13
Packaged: 2018-02-17 06:08:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,809
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2299289
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bactaqueen/pseuds/bactaqueen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Steve broods and Gail offers some advice.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hell of a Woman

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction. Recognizable characters belong to their respective owners. No profit is earned and no infringement is intended.
> 
> Author's Note: Inspired by and featuring [this page from Ultimate Comics Avengers #2](http://fuckyeahultscap.tumblr.com/post/79455155624/bactaqueen-ultimate-comics-avengers-2).

She scrapes her nails gently over the back of his neck and curls her other hand in the front of his jacket. She presses close, warm and soft and sweet-smelling and nothing he gets on the front lines, and lifts on her toes to hold her mouth near his ear.

"I want you, Steve. Right here." She kisses the side of his neck.

They're falling, she's pulling him back and he's reaching out to brace himself over her. She's smiling and her smile is everything-- _everything_. He wants. But...

"You sure this is a good idea, Gail? What about your old man?"

Her fingers are already in the front of his jacket, working open buttons, and she laughs at him. "Dad won't be back for  _hours_. Besides, he knows you're only home on leave for one night. He isn't stupid. He knows it's been three years."

Three years is a long time. It seems longer still when she's pulling at his jacket, when her thighs are parted around his waist, when her hair is spilling over the bedspread around her head and she's smiling up at him, shadows in her eyes, her lips wet and parted and suddenly looking so red.  _Hell,_  he thinks.  _She's going to be my wife._  That gives him a giddy rush.  _Wife._ He plans his hands on the bed over her head.

"You wanna help me with the buckles?"

She tips her head, smiles right into his eyes. "No." She laughs again. "I want you to keep it on."

He grins at her.

He gets the strap off his shoulder and she shoves his jacket open as she wriggles back on the bed, giving him room to kneel on the edge without falling off. Her thighs are draped over his and she lifts, just enough to reach for his belt, as he shrugs out of the jacket. She shoves his sweater up, her fingers warm on his skin, her nails scraping sharp lines up his belly. He leaves the gloves, leaves the mask, and when she's got his pants open, he falls over her again.

She's laughing still when he presses kisses to her mouth, to her cheek and chin and to her neck, and he holds himself over her with one hand on the bed as he slips the other between them, between her legs, gloved fingers sliding up the inside of her thigh. She gasps when he brushes covered fingers over her; her nails dig into his shoulders and she arches.

He laughs against her ear. "You weren't kidding."

She pulls at him. "Steve..."

Her legs hitch higher around his waist and he moves the hand from the bed to under her head, to fist in her hair. He covers her mouth to steal her breath, to taste the little gasp she always gives when he first pushes in. The worry is there--always there, he doesn't want to hurt her--but her back arches and her hips rock and she pulls him closer still. One hand moves from his shoulder to under his sweater again and her legs tighten around him. He lets her break the kiss to breathe and she sighs against his cheek.

"I love you," she murmurs.

 

*

 

Seventy years later, Steve wakes alone. The sheets are tangled around his legs and he's hot all over and there's a goddamn tent pole in his shorts. At least he didn't get as far as making an actual mess, he thinks, swinging his legs over the side of the bed and sitting up. He sets his elbows on his knees and hunches over, his head in his hands.

He lost count of how many times he replayed that night after he'd gone back to the war. Some nights alone in his bedroll or bunk it was all that kept him going. Sometimes, during a fight, he'd see her smile or hear her laugh and think about the letter back in garrison, the letter he'd written and left with a secretary to send  _in case of_. Gail had gotten that letter.

Steve scrubs his hands over his face and gets out of bed. He pads across the cold floor to the bathroom. It's early, but it's not so early he can't justify not going back to bed.

He doesn't want to think of what that night cost her.

Stubbornly, he ignores his erection, and he takes the coldest shower he can stand. By the time he's dressed, dawn is just beginning to break over the city. He puts on his jacket and grabs his keys and hopes Bucky and Gail weren't just being nice when they told him to show up anytime. The kids have soccer this morning, he knows, but maybe he can see her for just a few minutes before they have to head out.

He gets breakfast on the way. Donuts for Bucky and the boys, muffins for Gail, and coffee and juice for everyone. He rides the subway as far as it'll take him and walks the rest of the way, down the quiet tree-lined street, still and silent this early on a Saturday morning. He's alone in his head and that's always the worst place to be.

This could have been his if he'd listened to her. If he hadn't been so stubborn. He could have had this, a quiet retirement at the end of a long, full life. He passes a dark house on the corner and his eyes flick over the rocking chairs on the porch. He could have had that.

Instead he's got this. Sixty years in a deep freeze, nightmares, something the shrinks like to call  _post-traumatic stress disorder,_  the weight of the world on his shoulders, and a list of personal failures. Most everyone he knew is dead, he can't keep a woman (lost his fiancee to his best friend--fitting, Bucky always was the better man, and he can see that now--and even he can admit the thing with Jan was a mess), and the new "friends" he's got are barely friends at all.

It's hardly a life worth living.

_They should have left me in the ice._

He climbs the steps to their porch, shifting the donuts and muffins from one arm to the other so he can knock. He's got his fist raised when he hears her laugh.

It's different now, low and throaty and aged, but it's still  _her laugh_  and it still sends a little jolt through him. He looks, and she's curled up on the swing, wrapped in a blanket and holding a steaming mug in both hands.

"Need some help, soldier?"

He smiles. The tension he hadn't realized he'd been carrying eases from his shoulders and he shifts breakfast back around so he can set everything down on the little table between the chairs. "I got it." Her muffins and the coffee he'd brought for her and himself he keeps, and he shuffles across the little porch. "I thought since I was coming over so early, I'd bring breakfast. Where is everyone?"

She sets her coffee aside and accepts the one he offers, and the little bag. She turns her face up and offers her cheek, too. "Sharon and the boys aren't here yet. I think Bucky's still in the bathroom."

Steve smiles and kisses her, lips brushed to her warm lined skin. She's as beautiful as she ever was, even though he knows she doesn't believe that. "I've got you all to myself."

She gives him a cool look. "Don't go getting any ideas, I'm still quite happy with  _my_  husband."

He laughs even though it stings and he settles on the other end of the swing. He watches as she opens the bakery bag and her face lights up.

"You must really be sorry for something," she says, pulling one of the strawberry and cheese muffins from the bag.

He sips his coffee and hides behind the rim of it. "I'm sorry for not listening to you," he says.

Gail goes still. Slowly, she raises her eyes, and the look she gives him is pain and sympathy and more knowledge than he wishes she had. "Steve..."

He gives her a wry smile that hurts. "I know. It's too late. I just--"

She reaches out, and Steve catches her hand. Her skin is dry and feels papery and he can feel the veins, feel the fine bones, and he wonders what it would have been like to watch the hands he knew become these hands.

"You did what you thought you had to do," she's saying. "I understand that now."

Impulsively, he raises her hand to his mouth. "I never deserved you."

She touches his cheek and pulls back. "No, you didn't. And neither did Bucky, let me tell you."

That startles a laugh out of him.

She goes on, "I'm too good for both of you. But I love you, anyway." She starts picking at her muffin.

Steve watches her, heart a little heavy and a lot full. "You had a good life?" He's asked Bucky, but he knows all too well that men don't always know the truth about the women they love.

She gives him an arch look. "I'm not dead yet, Steve."

"Not even close, Gail."

She seems to take pity on him, or maybe she sees through everything and understands why he's really here. She sighs softly. "It was hard sometimes, especially right after... But yes. It was good. Bucky was good to me.  _Is_  good to me. I think we did all right."

He could at least take solace in that.

The way she looks at him makes him feel suddenly very young, and he's reminded of how much she's  _lived_  compared to him. She's quiet for several moments, for so long that he wonders if he shouldn't say something.

She says softly, "Life is too short. You can't... You  _can't_  anymore, all right? Be grateful for what you've been given."

He nods, because what else can he do?

She reaches out again, and she slips her hand into his. "We're glad you're back. Sometimes it doesn't seem like you are, though."

"I'm not," he admits, and saying it out loud, saying it to her, feels like having the wind knocked out of him. He winces. "I mean--"

She squeezes his fingers. "I know what you mean. And I know you need to find something that makes you glad you're back, because the world needs you, Steve."

He's not so sure about that, but he squeezes her fingers back gently and he tries to smile and he says, "I still love you."

Gail smiles, small and sweet and so familiar, without any trace of the self-consciousness he saw in her the first time, and she tells him, "Of course you do. I'm a hell of a woman."


End file.
